The quaestor stopped shooting but neither Lord Hhrahld nor Wilhm sheathed their weapons. Aelwyrd had emptied two of his quivers, but still held an arrow in each of his fists, ready to pass them to Eishtren.
As the mechanisms coalesced in a swirling mass below, Mar was on the verge of relaxing when individuals of various sizes rose up from the floor and flew toward them. Making a gut decision in a split second, he swept his charges toward the tunnel instead of back up toward the shaft.
As they raced toward this possible exit, the flying mechanisms curved in the air to follow like a swarm of angry bees. Seeing that, he realized that they had no predictive ability but were simply homing on the group's location moment by moment. Looking ahead, he saw that none were attempting to intercept them or otherwise block their path to the tunnel. All those that had been stationed nearest the tunnel had initially shifted toward the center of the cavern, leaving the way open.
"Should I resume fire, my lord king?" Eishtren asked, taking an arrow from Aelwyrd.
"No, conserve your arrows. We'll withdraw into the tunnel. We'll have a narrow front and our flanks will be protected. Once we gain some breathing room, we'll pull back and try to block the tunnel."
"What if there are more in the tunnel?" Aelwyrd asked.
"Then we'll fight our way through them." He did not bother to add that they would have no other choice. He increased their speed.
They made it to the tunnel about fifty armlengths ahead of the pursuing mechanisms. Mar landed the others and forged ahead as the row of overhead lamps lit. The tunnel was just a straight passage, tiled as had been the corridors above. It went only thirty paces and then swept down a ramp into the dark.
Under the circumstances, it seemed unwise to barrel on into the unknown. He stopped, turned, and waved the other four ahead. "Get behind me. I'll see if I can use my magic to hold the things back."
The first mechanism through the mouth of the tunnel was the size of a barrel and had a pair of two armlength scythes for arms. Mar tried to drive it back, but it was immediately clear that the metal beast was immune both to his lifting spells and his driving spells.
"Shoot it!" he ordered Eishtren.
An arrow zipped by Mar, penetrated the scyther lengthwise and it dropped dead in its tracks.
The second mechanism through was one of the dwarven ones. He tried to overload one of its modulations, but again had no success. "Eishtren."
This one blew up in a moderate explosion, the remains smacking into the walls of the tunnel and skidding against the body of the scyther. Next came two of the scythers and three of the dwarfs in a bunch, crawling over the remains of their fellows. The quaestor did not wait for Mar's order, dealing expediently with all five, and even managed to destroy two of the dwarfs with one arrow.
Lord Hhrahld and Wilhm moved up to flank Mar and the Lord-Protector suggested, "Let us deal with these smaller ones, my lord king, that we might preserve the quaestor's ammunition."
Mar nodded, fading back as a mixed mass of medium to small mechanisms rushed into the tunnel. Both swordsmen began swinging and a great din went up as steel smashed silver metal. The sheared bodies of the mechanisms began to pile up and in just a few moments the end of the tunnel became choked with wreckage, so that the attackers had to climb over a waist-high barrier, slowing them appreciably and making them even easier prey for the lightning blades of the giant warriors. Then, abruptly, both of the great longswords became still; the shattered pieces of the mechanisms had completely plugged the tunnel.
"Let's go!" Mar commanded, speeding toward the ramp.
At the head of it, a great smashing noise caused him to look back. Spinning relentlessly, an auger two armlengths wide had penetrated the plug and two flipper tipped armatures began to rip the hole wider as a mechanism with the semblance of an obscenely large mole bored through. Over and around it, the smaller mechanisms rushed into the tunnel and gave chase.
"Run!" he yelled with desperation.
And run they did. Down one level, suddenly lit spaces ignored, and down again. Five levels in all, they raced ahead of the stampeding mechanisms, which continually gained on them, until finally their lead dwindled to a pace or two.
Wilhm spun about on the landing of the sixth level and slashed out with his sword, slicing the leading trio of dwarf mechanisms neatly in two. Behind them crowded something with dozens of gesticulating rigid arms and Lord Hhrahld's blade eviscerated it in two strikes.
Then the swarm filled the air above the ramp, diving down at the Gaaelfharenii and Eishtren stepped up between the two to put his bow back into action, his flawless aim detonating a dozen enemies in the space of a single heartbeat.
As Mar had seen in Mhajhkaei, Eishtren was no longer shooting arrows, but rather pure shafts of ethereal flux. Aelwyrd stood frozen, staring helplessly at his empty quivers. Flares of light and sparks began to jump from the bow, and in the ether, a storm had sprung up, with vortexes of great power spinning off from the weapon. The quaestor had become enshrouded in a clashing rainbow-cacophony as the strong modulations in his bow began to build toward failure.
No respite was gained from this weird magic, however. With a manheight long rod glowing red-hot extending before it, a mechanism the size of a wagon trundled down the ramp, picked up speed, and raced toward them. A particularly strong bolt leapt from Eishtren's bow to meet it, and the mechanism erupted in a globe of fire, smoke, and flying metal.
A small piece of the shrapnel struck Eishtren in the shoulder with a hammer blow, denting his mail but not penetrating. The blow threw off his rhythm, however, and for a few seconds no flux bolt flew from his bow, allowing a mechanism with two armlength long shears at the end of four reticulated arms to lunge toward the quaestor.
Lord Hhrahld interposed himself between the shearer and the bowman, grinning broadly as he drove his sword straight through the metal creature. As it shuddered and died, the shearer hooked its right arm around faster than Mar could follow and impaled the Lord-Protector directly through the center of his chest, spraying blood, bone, and viscera. Immediately, the Gaaelfharenii's eyes went dim and his ruptured body limp, but he did not fall, held upright by the dead mechanism. Nor did he release his grip on his sword, still lodged in the guts of his killer. Nor did the savage grin fade from his quiescent face.
With a furious scream and eyes burning with insanity, Wilhm exploded into a whirlwind, his sword slashing through the still charging mechanisms with mad abandon. Still screaming, he raged up the ramp, flinging bits of dead mechanisms in all directions.
Cursing all the non-existent gods and his own magical impotence, Mar followed. Death had always been a central element of his life, but now the death of brave men seemed to have become the predominant feature of it.
Eishtren and Aelwyrd came on behind, the quaestor's bow sewing carnage and blasting any mechanisms that continued to twitch in Wilhm's wake.
The young Gaaelfharenii did not pause or slow, sprinting back up the ramps like some vengeful spirit. He took wounds, bruises and slashes on face and hands, lost a mail sleeve to a grappling hook, was bowled over by a compact mechanism that had no arms but took five bolts from Eishtren's bow to make it be still, and finally reached the tunnel at the top. Here the still mobile mechanisms, large and small, fled before him, pouring out of the tunnel and back into the cavern.
Mar flew up to him and grabbed his shoulder. "Wilhm! Stop! I command you to stop!"
For an instant, it looked as if Wilhm would continue his careless dash, but he did halt, his arms slowly lowering like some clockwork winding down to let the point of his scared and dented sword rest on the knee-deep carpet of severed mechanism arms, legs, and bodies. Then he sank to his knees and sat back on his heels, leaning on his sword. The hoarse bellows of his breath made a slight echo in the suddenly quiet tunnel.
Then another mechanism landed out in the cavern at the tunnel entrance. As it entered, it completely filled the space, squatting to drag itself forward with two arms as thi
ck as Mar's waist. Protruding parts of it scraped deep gouges in the ceiling, smashing lamps and bringing down a shower of tile. It had thick, shielding plates where a head should be and a heavy mesh covered its entire body.
Without complaint, Wilhm rose up to face it, raising his longsword across his body in a formal guard. Eishtren moved up next to him, Aelwyrd shadowing him with dogged determination, and began to launch shot after shot into the monstrosity. None of his bolts slowed it. Once again, the magic of the bow swelled toward annihilation.
Mar hovered alongside the three, pressing his magical sense outward. The lining of the tunnel was, like the mechanisms, immune to his manipulations, but he realized that there must be rock beyond it. He expanded his awareness, found good, honest stone all about, detected a significant fault, poured flux into the material immediately adjacent to it, and willed the mass inward. With a great resounding crack, a long stretch of tunnel roof came down as the overburden sheared free, crushing the advancing behemoth with resounding finality and permanently sealing off the tunnel.
Most of the lamps went out, but when the dust settled, there was still enough light to see. Eishtren and Aelwyrd stood stunned, staring at the rough granite face. Wilhm, expressionless again, sheathed his sword, turned about on one heel, and began walking unhurriedly back.
Looking anxious, Aelwyrd asked Eishtren, "Are we sealed in, Quaestor?"
"We are alive," the officer replied.
Without further words, the two of them turned and followed Wilhm.
As Mar followed them in turn, he glanced back at the barrier. It could never contain the amount of flux that would be required to raise it back. It would simply detonate like a gigantic sand sphere.
When he caught up with the others, Wilhm was in the process of removing Lord Hhrahld's blood covered body from the shearer. Instead of laying the old pirate on the floor, Wilhm caught him up in his arms, cradling him like a babe.
"He's dead, Wilhm," Mar told him. "We can't do anything for him."
Wilhm shook his head with unchallengeable certainty. "My dreams have told me that I must not leave him, my lord king."
"My lord king, if we are to all die in this place after we have come so far," Eishtren said in an emotionless tone, "it is fitting that we should all be together at the end."
Nodding with fatalistic submission, Mar turned and moved down the ramp.
FORTY-FOUR
3002 Before the Founding of the Empire
Bunker 8, City of Pyra
Engineer Rheldq raised his glass. "To friends present and past!"
Communicator Syndys clinked her glass with his. "To the future!"
The remaining three, the other two engineers, Grys and Maey, and the young medic, Llylquaendt, raised their glasses without adding to the toast. The five of them drank together.
Maey, six months pregnant with Grys' child, said, "We should be going before the sun gets any higher. The cargo litter will only get us to the edge of the ruins, and we'll need to get as far as we can before we have to lie up for the day." She left unspoken her oft repeated complaint that they should have chosen to leave months previously, before summer had set in.
Rheldq smiled and nodded. It had been his obstinacy that had delayed their evacuation. "You three get the litter ready. I'll see Llylquaendt down to his coffin."
"I'll come with you," Syndys said. "So you won't have to walk back up alone."
She was coming along to make sure that he did not go back on his promise to go with them. He could not say that the thought had not occurred to him -- to metaphorically go down with his ship like a good captain -- but there was truly nothing left for him, for any of them, here. He should have agreed to go when Braquendt and his group had departed.
"That's fine," he told his wife. "Grys, Maey, we'll be back up just as soon as we get Llylquaendt buttoned up."
The five of them separated at the ramps, two going up and three down.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Syndys asked the medic.
The young man grinned. "Yes, positive. The world up there is a nasty, difficult place. I've never lived anywhere else but in the heart of Pyra and I'm just not cut out for the rural life. Besides, this is my chance to see the future!"
Rheldq tried not to frown. Returning to stasis had been the medic's idea and Rheldq had argued with him only long enough to make sure that it was not a whim, but he still thought that the young man would be better off living out his life, such as it was, in the here and now. "How long did you decide on?"
"A century. I figure by that time that you technical types will have a nice civilization going replete with all the magical comforts that I'm used to."
Rheldq laughed, though he did not actually feel amused.
The lowest level of the bunker was the largest and had been designed to accommodate ten thousand stasis coffins. The two hundred and fifty of the pilot project and the small medical section barely made a drop in one corner of the vast space.
Llylquaendt's coffin stood open and ready, humming quietly to itself as it went through function checks. The medic removed his coverall, folded it neatly and placed it on an adjacent shelf, then climbed in.
"Goodbye and good luck, Llylquaendt," Syndys told him warmly, then leaned down to give him a hug and buss both of his cheeks. "Check on our great-grandchildren. Tell them that I said to behave."
"Yes, mam!"
Rheldq shook the medic's hand. "Good luck."
Llylquaendt grinned again. "Yes, sir. You too!" Then he folded his hands and keyed the coffin's lid. The magics put him to sleep before the lid had fully closed.
Syndys took Rheldq's arm firmly and steered him toward the exit. "Let's hurry! Our future is waiting!"
FORTY-FIVE
None of the doors were locked and all, powered by magic, swung open at a touch, giving access to spacious rooms furnished with chairs, tables, and lounges, but otherwise empty of any evidence of occupation. No clothing hung in the built-in armoires, no small clothes nestled in the drawers, and no shoes hung in the wall mounted trees. There were no toys, tools, artwork, decorations, or refuse. Most of the chambers were bunkrooms with rows of double bunks precisely separated by wide aisles. Every mattress had pristine white sheets, blue blankets, and a covered, firm pillow. None of the furnishings were made of wood or stone, and none showed tool marks. There was some metal, but for the most part the ancient carpenters had used a slick, cream colored material that appeared to have been formed directly into the needed shapes.
Nowhere was there dust, cobweb, or mildew and Mar surmised that some unseen magic maintained the place in a pristine state.
"It is a barracks complex," Eishtren affirmed. "This was intended for at least two legions."
"The garrison didn't have a chance to move in," Aelwyrd said perceptively. "Maybe they all died in battle."
The quaestor shrugged. "Perhaps. We shall never know."
Mar made a point of opening every door and looking into every space, seeking any indication of the text, but saw nothing, as he had grudgingly realized that he would not.
They returned to the ramps and the waiting Wilhm and his burden. The Gaaelfharenii had been completely uninterested in looking around, barely responding when Mar told him to wait until he and the others returned. With the magic bond having evaporated at Lord Hhrahld's death, Mar feared that the giant was in the process of reverting to his original quasi-stable, often dangerous and debilitated, state of mind.
Down to the eleventh, every level below the tunnel was like the first, immaculate and empty. The twelfth level, though, showed clear signs that it had been lived in. Everything was in order -- chairs pushed under tables, beds made, and common areas policed -- but there were scuffs on floors, wrinkles in blankets, and an empty glass bottle and five glass cups sitting haphazardly on a counter.
"Whoever they were, they tidied up, drank a toast, and departed," Eishtren said, lifting a glass to take an exploratory sniff. "This perhaps suggests discipline, camaraderie, and purpo
se."
Now convinced that the text would be with whatever waited on the lowest level, Mar decided not to waste any more time searching for it on any of the others. "There's another ramp going down. Let's find the bottom."
That, as it turned out, was the very next level, which, when its lamps came on, was revealed to be the largest yet, a three manheight high cavern with a flat ceiling supported by equidistant natural rock pillars as big as a house. Nearest the ramp in neat rows were one hundred and fifty glass and metal containers measuring two armlengths by one. Each sat on a metal framework that raised them an armlength off the simple stone floor.
"Those look like caskets," Aelwyrd commented, making a face.
"They may very well be." Mar floated over to the nearest along the central aisle and peered through the patterned glass lid into its dark interior.
He found the container empty, though it was clear that it had been designed to hold a person, having a bottom sculpted in the reverse shape of a person's nude rear half. This one had been intended for a woman, with the outline of the depression having moderately wide hips, generous buttocks, and a narrow waist. He floated around the device, examining its exterior, but as far as he could tell there were no physical controls, though he could discern subtle flux modulations of many sorts in several different locations. None of these seemed associated with any particular physical part, however.
Wilhm walked serenely by him, paused to lay Lord Hhrahld's body in the center of the aisle, and then continued on, stopping in front of another of the containers, apparently just waiting.
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